Fois Gras on Top Chef last night/graphic pix added not by me!!!!!!!

[MissPrissy]

Liver was a huge part of our diet growing up. Still is for those of us that do not buy it from a grocery store.

We are selective though. Daddy raise beef cattle. We rarely ate beef liver because Daddy felt it was too tough and bitter. We ate calves liver. The big beef livers from the beef butchered for our personal freezer was saved and used as catfish bait or a protein supplement for the hunting dogs my dad raised.

I never developed a taste for the kidneys but it is never wasted. What we don't eat is cycled around to other livestock on the farm. However, have you ever had tongue tacos??? Great use of beef tongue!

You just have to be willing to at least try pieces and parts and to eat things that aren't a prime choice steak or premium roast.

 

[SewingDiva]

Quote:
You know, I've never had tongue, aslthough I know it's very favored by people like organ meats and we'd try it for sure if I could find a source I trusted. I've seen it in Asian markets locally, and I have to admit that it's kind of amazing how big they are when you see one up close!

But then again, cattle do have big heads, so it stands to reason...

~Phyllis

 

[Ace_king_brahma]

Quote:
You know, I've never had tongue, aslthough I know it's very favored by people like organ meats and we'd try it for sure if I could find a source I trusted. I've seen it in Asian markets locally, and I have to admit that it's kind of amazing how big they are when you see one up close!

But then again, cattle do have big heads, so it stands to reason...

~Phyllis

It's very good. I'm lucky we have a lot of barbcoa joints around where I live and get some sliced up for tacos on Sundays.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Quote:
On the same show, he took his two pigs (I can't recall the breed, sorry) to the processor's. He was quite emotional, as he'd become attached to the pigs, but he stayed there and saw it through. He said he thought it was "a bloody shame" that he'd been cooking for this long and had never been to the slaughterhouse. Right before they were killed, he went into the pen with the pigs, petted them, scratched their ears, and called them by name, thanking them for being "good girls." He got pretty choked up. But he had raised the pigs himself so that he could oversee their upbringing, lifestyle, and diet, and the end result was the culmination of all that care and work. It was really eye-opening to see the cleaned and processed pigs hanging in the cooler with tags bearing their names (One was "Susannah," but I can't recall the other).

There was another show that featured turkeys he raised, and he named them all after other celebrity chefs, I think so he could have a laugh when they were butchered. There was a "Nigella" and a "Mario," among others.

My dislike of fatty or rare meats and organ meats isn't about an "ick" factor--I just don't like the flavor. But we don't waste anything, because our dogs eat a fresh raw diet, and they get what we don't eat, even when my husband brings home a deer.